Beginning
by Xeen Cyr
Summary: Olivia has to persuade Peter to keep working on the project – mostly rant S1E04 The Arrival


**FRINGE**

**Beginning**

_Fringe doesn't belong to me. I'm __merely borrowing the characters and I promise I will put them back in their box when I'm finished.  
_

**Note:** Olivia has to persuade Peter to keep working on the project – missing scenes -- mostly rant [_S1E04 The Arrival_]

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

He wanted out. _This is the last one, Olivia. Then I'm gone._ He had grabbed her arm and squeezed it ever so slightly; she had felt his breath on her face and flinched. Not her best move to pull away. She was not good at bonding with people under the scrutiny of her colleagues. She needed a steady professional environment, and that's exactly what was eluding her at the moment. Her whole world merely kept crumbling down under her feet again and again.

He wanted out and there was not much she could do about it. She stared blankly at the files fanned out on her desk before her. She had to go back to the hospital, find out about Peter.

"_Agent Dunham, I cannot allow this. That would be a breach of …"_

"_Hear me out. If Peter Bishop leaves, Walter Bishop is gone too. He made it clear. You have to ask yourself a simple question."_

"_You have my attention."_

"_You don't need me to find which. I'm confident you will make the right choice_."

She had left without giving Broyles a chance to respond. She'd been right to barge into his office and pressed him into giving the Bishops some leeway. Her fingertips brushed the plastic tags. No civilian credentials had ever been approved so fast by Homeland Security. Those guys were desperate. Simply they were too late.

In her mind's eyes, she did not want this journey to end. Not like that. She wanted to find out about John, about William Bell and Massive Dynamic, about that new realm of possibilities she knew nothing about a few weeks back. She was craving for uncanny answers that Walter ultimately seemed able to give. There was more to it than matching curves and lab results. Walter was paramount to the project but achieving this without Peter's help was virtually mission impossible.

The problem was that Peter could perfectly call it a day on a whim. She could not shy away from the possibility. As a matter of fact, she knew it first hand from day one, especially after the trouble she had gone into to find him and persuade him to leave Iraq. _I don't do well staying in one place. _She did not want to indulge into cheap psych evaluation, but he was always on the move and obviously running from something or someone, most likely both. On top of it, it was one thing to be his father legal guardian but quite another to get involved in their hunt for phantom zone wannabes, paranormal phenomenon and Mary Shelley paraphernalia, and bear the burden of having to keep Walter in check.

She parked her SUV on the hospital parking lot and walked briskly towards the entrance.

As far as she knew, Peter was merely acting out on his own exhaustion. Her best guess would be that given some good nights' sleep, preferably not chemical induced sleep, away from Walter and his usual never-ending hyperactivity, he would most likely accept to carry on with the task at hand. That would mean no new case, no last minute mission, no pressure. How could she achieve that when she was still trying to prove herself in the eyes of Broyles and his sorts?

He wanted out. She was sincere when she told him that if he ever chose to leave, Walter would be institutionalized again. It was her last line of defence. Nothing had ever prepared her to face that big a challenge all by herself. Since John had died on her, she had had time enough to realize that she was not prepared for anything, really. And still, she was the one trying to make Peter stay against his will and become a part of his estranged father's new life and FBI pet project.

She was not attempting to fool herself. Their 'cell', team, whatever they called it, depended on temperamental Walter's good will and his son's involvement. Peter's decision to quit would definitely send their chances back in limbo, their fight and the quest for the Pattern doomed.

She felt like an outside observer; she has watched them numerous times now, father and son working in unison, juggling with test tubes, marvelling before a metallic artefact or a blood sample, comparing graphs on a monitor; she had to shudder away her delirious thoughts. _There's nothing special about me._ They shared personality traits and physical features. They were the same height, their faces showing the same bone structure with the same deep crease in the middle of their forehead. They were so similar and so different, same brain, vivacious and brilliant, same ill-tempered, arrogant and direct manners, same carefree and childlike joie de vivre. After a few weeks of revisiting the twilight zone, it was screaming cloning at her.

No wonder he wanted out, this was madness. She had massaged her forehead in a useless attempt at regaining her composure. Immediately he had been to her side, interest to the case tossed away in the background, his face rumpled with concern and she had to pretend she was ok, that everything was going to be fine. She could see he was not convinced. She was hoping that her own insecurity was not rubbing off on him. _I wanted to help. I felt bad. I still feel bad about what happened to you. But the truth is… you don't need me here. _She DID need him here, if one thing, he must know that. But still he wanted out.

Even if she was good at this game of connecting dots and projecting theories, she did not envision that his life would be put at risk. She blamed herself for not being cautious enough. He was supposed to take care of Walter; she was supposed to look after him. And now not only had she failed him, but she was hearing things, she was seeing things, things that did not exist, things that could not exist --except for her. Everyday she was getting closer to being admitted to Saint-Claire into a padded cell next to Walter's, everyday she wished they could reverse the procedure and get John out of her head.

Peter had been hurt badly; he could have been killed as far as she knew because THEY hid things from her, crucial intel. No wonder he wanted out.

She finally reached the level where he had been admitted but Broyles had been here first. She felt sick. What if Peter was… _I didn't promise you anything. I warned you from the word go._ He did warn them, but they did not listen. They knew better, she smirked. She ached with relief when she watched him walk to the desk and sign his release form, but his tall figure was wretched and his face swollen with marks of beating. He was safe for now and what happened to him was a little too close for comfort. She was aware to be an open book to Broyles and did her best to appear as emotionless as possible --and probably failed. Resisting the urge to run to Peter, she did her best to listen to Broyles. She waited until he was finished to walk calmly towards him. He was far more serious than she has ever seen him before even though he was not trying to put on a tough guy act.

_I am not going anywhere__._ Her heart leaped inside her chest, her mouth twitched. For the time being, Peter was about the only one she could trust and be comfortable with although he was a total stranger. When they left the building, he was almost back to his usual sarcastic self.

She opened the car and cast a glance at him. They were heading into unknown territories and she was glad that he had changed his mind, that she had him by her side. Her smile froze on her face. _But what if Walter is right? What if this is just the beginning?_ She slammed the car door shut and drove off.

-o-

_So?? Did you like it?_


End file.
